About this Book

In this memoir about three generations of New York City policemen, Brian McDonald chronicles a hundred years of dedication and disillusion, heroism and tragedy behind the "blue wall of silence" that separates a cop from the rest of the world. His grandfather, Thomas Skelly, entered the department in 1893, when the NYPD was little more than a brutal gang of organized enforcers and the city was run by Tammany Hall, a corrupt political machine that could make or break an honest cop's career. His father Frank's career would span from World War II through the sixties, taking him from street cop to squad commander of the 41st Precinct. Better known as "Fort Apache," it was a place from which few cops emerged whole. His brother, Frank McDonald, Jr., went on to become a decorated officer, waging an undercover war on drugs and crime that would ironically lead, in 1987, to the most agonizing choice a good cop can make.